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Low-Carb Baked Chicken Nuggets with Mustard, Almond, and Parmesan

Baked Chicken Nuggets with Mustard, Almond, and Parmesan are kid-friendly and delicious! And these tasty chicken nuggets are low-carb, gluten-free, and South Beach Diet friendly for the adults as well.

I love updating older recipes with better photos that show off the food more effectively, but it can also be a challenge to update an old recipe. Because let's face it, my tastes have changed since I first started this blog almost 11 years ago, and I'm a better cook now than I was then. So sometimes when I make an older recipe again I can't stop myself from improving it!

That's what happened when Kara and I worked on this recipe for Low-Carb Chicken Nuggets with Mustard, Almond, and Parmesan. We were expecting that some of the coating would fall off the chicken and stick to the pan, because in the original post I mentioned that happened and said that if this chicken had been slightly less delicious I might never have posted the recipe. And I explained how I had tried two versions, but by the second time I didn't care if the coating fell off because the chicken was so tasty.

But Kara and I are up for a challenge, and although it took us a few tries, we managed to get what we thought was a greatly-improved result by switching the original chicken strips to chicken nuggets, and (drumroll please) using Parchment Paper to cover the pan when we baked them. And what a huge difference that made in the final result. We also used more finely ground almond flour instead of the coarser almond meal, which I think helped it stick better. And Kara and I agreed that if you're making chicken nuggets you want a whole sheet pan full, so we increased the recipe to four chicken breasts as well.

And although they still looked a bit messy when they were cooking, we absolutely loved these low-carb chicken nuggets. I had some leftovers in the fridge when my nieces Kate and Amanda spent the night last weekend and they also raved over how good they were. And if you're a mom who's trying to follow a lower carb eating plan and looking for things the kids will eat, I promise, you'll love this recipe!

Trim the chicken breasts and pound each one just until they are close to an even thickness and not much more than 1/2 inch thick. Cut the pounded chicken breasts into nuggets. Mix the mayo, Dijon mustard, white balsamic vinegar, water, garlic powder, and poultry seasoning to make the marinade; then put the chicken into a Ziploc bag and let the chicken marinate 3-4 hours or all day in the fridge. (You could cut up the chicken and mix the marinade the night before and keep them in the fridge; then just add the the marinade to the bag before you go to work or leave for the day.)

When it's dinner time, dump the chicken into a colander placed in the sink and let the excess marinade drip off while the oven heats. Line the sheet pan with Parchment Paper. We used a food processor or mini-processor to grind together the Parmesan cheese, almond flour, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper, but you can probably just mix it with a fork if your almond flour and Parmesan is finely ground. One at a time, dip nuggets in the almond flour mixture and place on the parchment paper.

Bake the nuggets without turning for 12-15 minutes or until they're starting to get browned. Then turn then and cook about 10-12 minutes more. Total cooking time will be 20-25 minutes, depending on your pan and oven temperature.

Coating Ingredients:
4 T Parmesan cheese (freshly grated is best, not the kind that comes in a can, but either will work)
1 cup almond flour (You can also use almond meal if that's what you have, but it won't stick to the chicken quite as well unless you grind it a bit more in the food processor.)
1/4 tsp. poultry seasoning
salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste (I didn't use much salt)

Instructions:

Trim any undesirable parts from chicken, then put each chicken breast into a Ziploc bag and pound with a meat mallet (or something heavy) until the chicken is an even thickness, not much over 1/2 inch thick. Cut the chicken breasts into nugget-size pieces. Whisk together mayo, Dijon, white balsamic vinegar, water, garlic powder, and poultry seasoning. Place chicken strips and marinade in plastic bag and marinate in refrigerator for at least 3-4 hours or as long as all day.

When ready to cook, dump chicken into a colander placed in the sink so the excess marinade runs off and let chicken come to room temperature while you preheat oven to 450F/230C. If needed, use a food processor to finely grind the almond flour or meal, Parmesan, poultry seasoning, salt, and pepper, and put coating in large flat bowl. (If your almond flour and Parmesan are both finely ground you can probably just stir it together with a fork.) Cover baking sheet with Parchment Paper. Dip each chicken piece into coating, turning to coat both sides, and arrange in single layer on baking sheet.

Bake without turning for 12-15 minutes, or until the chicken is starting to look a little brown on the top. Then use metal turner and go under each piece of chicken to carefully turn each piece. Cook 10-12 minutes more on the second side until chicken is well browned and cooked through. Total cooking time will be 20-25 minutes, depending on your pan and oven temperature. Serve hot.

(If you're reheating this in the microwave, be careful not to overcook or it will get dry. It is definitely best reheated in a hot pan or toaster oven.)

I'd consider these Low-Carb Chicken Nuggets to be a good option for any phase of the South Beach Diet and other low-carb eating plans. For the South Beach Diet, be sure to consider the almond meal as your allowance of nuts for the day if you're eating this for phase one.

I chose the South Beach Diet to manage my weight partly so I wouldn't have to count calories, carbs, points, or fat grams, but if you want nutritional information for a recipe, I recommend entering the recipe into Calorie Count, which will calculate it for you. Or if you're a member of Yummly, you can use the Yum button on my site to save the recipe and see the nutritional information there.

More Tasty Ideas with Baked Chicken:
(Recipes from other blogs may not be low-carb or South Beach Diet friendly; check ingredients.)

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Do you think this would have enough flavor with the mustard omitted? Other than the mustard, it sounds like a recipe right up my alley (love almonds, love parmesan). Mustard is one of the few foods that I truly despise. I can handle it in tiny quantities, but this amount would be taste-able, I think. :-)

Zoe, I do think you could make this without the mustard, but you'd need to replace it with something else. I might try 2 1/2 T mayo and 1 1/2 T white balsamic vinegar. You could also use something completely different in place of mustard; there are lots of possibilities that might be good (Ranch dressing is one that comes to mind.)

For the combo of 2 1/2 T mayo and 1 1/2 T balsamic vinegar I might add a tiny bit more poultry seasoning. Let me know if you try a variation, I'd love to hear how it turns out.

Wow this was delicious!! One of my new favorite dinners. I've been following your blog for a while but only recently did I actually start the diet and this has been the best thing I've tried yet! Your blog has really made it so much easier, thank you!

Hi Kayln,I made this recipe last night and it was so easy to make and very tasty. I took the suggestion of one of your other posters and made it on a wire rack (sprayed with cooking spray!) on a foil-lined cookie sheet. My only recommendation is to still turn the chicken strips over as your recipe suggests as the bottoms didn't get browned like the top. I turned them over and they lost a bit of the coating, but it wasn't too a great loss. We'd definitely make them again. Thanks again for your great recipes!

I cooked this dish last night for my family and they all loved it! My husband and I just started South Beach and when I found your blog I wanted to cry! Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into this blog! It's so well organized and everything is easy to find. Loved this recipe and will be visting here again to find more!

Kayln- I cooked this dish for my family last night and they ALL loved it. My littel sister said it doesn't even taste like "diet food". Thank you so much for all the hard work you put into this site! It makes the SB lifestyle A TON easier!

This is one of my absolute favorite South Beach Diet dinners!! It's delicious! I like having some in the fridge left over for a (small) snack the next day...I think it's yummy cold (though I might be the only one). :) Thanks, Kalyn!

I'm not sure how this would work without almonds. If they can eat other types of nuts, I'd grind up some peanuts or cashews and use in place of the almonds. It may work without doing that, but I can't really say for sure.

Well of course you *could* make it with regular balsamic vinegar, but I honestly don't know how it would work, since I haven't tried it that way. Seems like the vinegar will turn the coating dark, but it might be okay.

I made this last night for my family. I tried the wire rack as some other people had suggested I didn't turn chicken but it was evenly browned and the crust stayed on really well. I didn't have almond meal so I finely ground almonds and it truned out great. Everyone in my family loved it. I gave the receipe to my sister to make for my 1 year old niece. Thanks Kalyn for all your hard work. I will be trying more of your stuff in the future.

Great recipe, I was excited to try it. But at 450 degrees, it was way overcooked. I baked for 15 minutes, chicken was already done but coating was not crispy. I put the broiler on and that worked to crisp the outside but I ended up with really dry chicken. Very sad, not sure what the right temp and time would be.

I keep all my old recipe binders so that if someone has a problem with a recipe like you did I can go back and look it up. My notes for this say say 450F, cook 15-20 minutes, turn carefully and cook 10 minutes more. I would have been cooking it in a toaster oven, which could have made a difference. I see there are several comments from people who had success with it, but one other person who thought it was overdone.

I'd have to guess at what made the difference, but maybe the thickness of the chicken or how cold it was when it went into the oven would affect it. Also some ovens can be much hotter than others even if set at the same temp. If you liked it, I'd try again at 400F and start to check a little sooner.

Kalyn, made this chicken tonight and it was so good. I did have trouble with the coating sticking to the pan instead of the chicken so I'll either try putting it on parchment paper in the pan (sprayed with Pam) or use a rack like someone else did. Putting the recipe in my cookbook. Thanks!!

I tried making this for lunch today. Final result was tasty but despite being super careful I did lose a fair bit of crumb.

I have a recipe given to me by a family friend that is similiar but has a cornflake crumb with a yoghurt marinade (I don't know if thats South Beach friendly, I come here for the recipes and leave the diets for someone else)

Thanks for all the low-carb/SB recipes. They can be a real God-send. I tried the chicken fingers today. Worked just great. Some crust loss, but not that much. I enjoyed it with a roasted red pepper-based, no-sugar BBQ sauce. Perfect for a late summer day.

I'm so happy you're taking the time to comment on Kalyn's Kitchen! I love hearing from people who stop by, especially if you're sharing feedback or asking questions about a recipe I've posted here.

I've recently changed my comment settings so people can comment without signing in, but you will need to check the box to show you're a live person, and comments on older posts won't show up until I publish them. Thanks for understanding!

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